The ROTC competition season has been packed full of exciting events, but sadly on February 16th they had their last competition as a whole. Everyone taking part in the conference has spent a lot of time and effort preparing, specifically one hour everyday, usually before school. Lucky enough though some people were able to make it on to Regionals, specifically our color guard and unarmed duel team.

For senior Caleb Palmer it was his last time competing in ROTC. He’s been training for the P.S. or Physical Strength team to see how many push ups he can do in 6 minutes, sit ups in 2, and a mile run. Palmer can impressively do a whopping 106 push ups, 65 sit ups, and a 6:50 mile according to his records. It’s no wonder people like Greg Farley (10), a fellow ROTC member who competes in drill, looks up to him. He’s known him since freshman year when he first entered the program, he says “Palmer is a good example for people to look up to, as well as a good leader”.

Enough about Palmer though, junior Samrie Feria competes in duel unarmed with partner Areanna Schuerman (11) and is going to regionals for there first time. The event has been said by many AHS students to be very mesmerizing as well as also very difficult looking, and it’s true! The girls have to come up with a two to three minute long performances with exact same motions timed perfectly for the judges. Samrie is glad she decided to join her freshman year after enjoying her drill zero period class, and is excited where ROTC takes her in the future.

I encourage you to come out for ROTC if your interested in gaining leadership and disciplinary skills as well as communicating with others better. I hope to see some students of AHS supporting our ROTC program at their last competition of the season.